Room acoustics is like economics: It’s vitally important but impossible to understand. But a new Bay Area company is working to simplify the complicated process of acoustic analysis so almost anyone can do it.
Seagrave Instruments’ new acoustic analyzer is called LASSIE, which stands for Large Array of Sound Sensors Indicating Excitation. LASSIE relies on 49 special sound-pressure level meters, which are something like those RadioShack things used to balance surround-sound systems. The difference is that instead of displaying the results with a wiggling needle, each of LASSIE’s meters has an LED on top that gets brighter as the sound grows louder.
